Let’s not conflate APD with political history, and other reflections on “Causal Inference and American Political Development”

American political development (APD) is a distinctive field of research that should not be conflated with, or flattened into a caricature of, historical research that uses historical data to make flawed causal inferences. It is a problem-driven inquiry into the dynamics of American politics, a substantive and theoretical exploration of how American politics has changed over time. APD research uses diverse types of data from a wide range of...